Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to attend a photography workshop at the Klotz Throwing Mill, an abandoned silk mill in Maryland. Closed since 1957, the mill has developed a wonderful patina and is full of photography opportunities.
Look for the full trip report on Tuesday.
With the recent closing of the Great Movie Ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, I thought I’d share one of my favorite photos of the ride. The cowboy scene was always impressive with the explosion and actual fire in the bank.
The Great Movie Ride was the last opening day attraction from the former Disney’s MGM studios which opened in 1989 and is one of my top 5 favorite Disney attractions.
I’ll do a longer “trip report” post with more favorite images on Tuesday.
Last Saturday I had the opportunity to attend a photo charter at the Locust Heights & Western Railroad in Clarksburg West Virginia. The LH&WRR is a “backyard” railroad operated by the Mason Family and their team of dedicated volunteers. They typically only operate on Wednesday evenings, June through October so this photo excursion was a special opportunity.
Look for a trip report Tuesday.
Maroon Bells is a popular location to photograph sunrise in Colorado, especially in the fall when the aspen trees on both sides of the lake turn gold. A storm was blowing through the morning I was there, so we didn’t have the typical alpine sunrise reflected in the lake. There was a short break in the clouds after sunrise that allowed the photographers assembled at the lake to get a couple of photos before the clouds closed in again.
I’ll post Part 3 of my Colorado Fall Trip Report on Tuesday, covering Maroon Bells, Independence Pass and Great Sand Dunes National Park.
Since a number of folks liked my previous post from Ravens Roost Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway, I thought I’d share another.
I usually don’t include people in my landscape photos because they’re often distracting elements. But on the rare occasion when they’re standing in the right spot, its nice to include people to add a sense of scale. After other photographers had moved on to other locations at the overlook, I found a composition that allowed me to include two people between the trees.
Half the fun of photography is the experience behind each image. In the case of this image, I’ll never forget the sound of N&W 611 crawling up the grade outside Christiansburg pulling a 19 car train while doing her best Mt. Vesuvius impression, or the moment when the exhaust hit the underside of the highway bridge we were standing on, lifting the bridge upward.
This photo of sunset at Ravens Roost Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway is another case of luck favoring the prepared. I was driving from work in Baltimore down to Roanoke for Memorial Day Weekend to photograph N&W 611 on her trips out of Roanoke. During lunch at work I took a couple of minutes to look up potential sunset locations on the the Blue Ridge Parkway just in case I was ahead of schedule and had time to head back up the parkway after checking into my hotel. Four traffic accidents on I-81 turned a 4 hour drive into 7 hours, but remembering one photo I saw of an overlook at the North end of the parkway, I turned east on I-64 with just enough time to get to Ravens Roost Overlook before sunset. Sometimes you just get lucky.
14th New Jersey Monument at Sunrise on the 150th Anniversary. I managed to get a couple of photos early the morning of the anniversary before heading to work.
The 153rd anniversary on the Battle that Saved Washington is this coming Sunday.
Yes, I know I’m a couple of days early, but since I post these on Fridays, this is as close as we’re going to get. Anyway, this one is from a few years back. I’ve only shot the Washington DC Independence Day fireworks from the Marine Corps Memorial one time and found it to be a very difficult exposure. The monument is so dark compared to the fireworks that most of what I got was either badly overexposed fireworks or an underexposed monument. Fortunately I got one good frame out of that attempt. Maybe I’ll try it again someday.
Happy Independence Day!
When Feld Entertainment announced they were closing the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, I hoped I would have a chance to see the RBBBX Circus Train that was used to move the performers and equipment from city to city. There were two such trains, the Red Unit and the Blue Unit, one for each of the two traveling shows. Both trains were a mile long, making them the largest passenger trains on the rails.
With the Blue Unit running 3 hours ahead of schedule May 8th on its way from Charleston WV to Long Island NY, there was little chance I would be able to catch it after work and in the daylight the next day. Mechanical issues caused an 8 hour delay in Roanoke VA, which allowed me to catch the train between Shepherdstown WV and Sharpsburg, MD. Sometimes you just get lucky, this was one of those times.